Top 327 Chefs Quotes & Sayings

One thing that makes me very happy is to see the growing activism among chefs in America. Chefs like Tom Colicchio, Bill Telepan, and Rachel Ray and food writers like Michael Pollan have gone to Congress, indeed sometimes even have testified before Congress, have lent this support to Mrs. Obama's effort to combat childhood obesity.

Chefs hate desserts. The smartest thing a chef can do is hire a great pastry chef. Cooking savory food is all about feel - you season something, you taste it, you go back in and adjust, more butter, more olive oil, more acid, whatever you want to get it to taste the way you want. Pastries are like a science project. To me, the greatest chefs are the ones who have the greatest feel for food, while the greatest pastry chefs have to be people that are extremely precise.

Sweet Genius'' viewers will be on the edge of their seats as we continue to push the limits with inspirations and ingredients, while showcasing the talents of some of the best pastry chefs around. As a result, the desserts that the chefs create are truly outrageous.

In my early days, I copied the great French chefs, like most chefs do. Copying is not bad. Copying and not recognizing that you are copying is bad. For me, when I go to a restaurant and am served a dish influenced by something we created at elBulli, if it's well done, it makes me extremely happy.

Chefs aren't celebrities: they're chefs.

I've always been fascinated by chefs and the worlds of chefs - what they do is incredibly cinematic.

Very good cooks who are employed as 'chefs' rarely refer to themselves as 'chefs.' They refer to themselves as 'cooks.'

In Singapore, there is this life and locals and restaurants and then big casinos and an array of chefs, and even Miami is almost close to Vegas when it comes to an amazing presentation of chefs. But they don't have these massive hotels that have become their own culinary villages.

I miss being fawned over by restaurateurs and chefs.

You're getting to know who the great chefs are through their books.

Chefs have only been able to work in restaurants, high-end cuisine. Why? Why haven't they been able to find other scenarios? For those chefs who want to do avant-garde cuisine, should they be finding their income in a restaurant? These are the kind of questions we are asking ourselves. So the new scenario will allow them to do whatever they want to do, whenever they want to do it.

I don't think the rating system places too much pressure on chefs. I prefer to put the pressure on my chefs to perform to the top standards.

I'm evangelical on the subject of some chefs and writers.

In any restaurant of this caliber, the chefs are in the same position, building relationships.

We the chefs have a responsibility to learn about the chemical makeup of food!

As chefs, especially pastry chefs, your creativity plays such an important part in your daily work. We truly do have a blank canvas to work with every time we create a new dish.

Chefs are leaders in their own little world.

Chefs have the ego of an actor and fashion designer combined.

There really is a camaraderie among chefs and a willingness to help out whenever we can.

When helicopters were snatching people from the grounds of the American embassy compound during the panic of the final Vietcong push into Saigon, I was sitting in front of the television set shouting, Get the chefs! Get the chefs!

What I've learned over the years is it's so much better to surround yourself with real talent and hire real chefs. I learned more from the chefs I have working for me than you could ever imagine. There's nothing wrong with being able to create opportunities for people, and you don't have to do everything, take credit for everything, and have all the weight be on your shoulders.

I've always said that I think females make the best chefs anywhere in the world.

Young chefs, famous chefs, home cooks, and everyone who loves food and cooking-we all depend on Larousse Gastronomique. It is the only culinary encyclopedia that is always up-to-date.

I found most of my learning has taken place after culinary college, when I travelled and met chefs and non-chefs.

I kind of think of engineering like the chefs at a restaurant. Nobody's going to deny chefs are integrally important, but there's also so many other people who contribute to a great meal.

Following the devastating India Ocean tsunami of 2004, I founded Chefs for Humanity, modeled after Doctors Without Borders, but comprised of chefs. There wasn't anything out there like it, and there was a definite need for chefs to be able to offer assistance and aid to those suffering from hunger and/or malnutrition worldwide.

Celebrity chefs are the leaders in the field of food, and we are the led. Why should the leaders of chemical businesses be held responsible for polluting the marine environment with a few grams of effluent, which is sublethal to marine species, while celebrity chefs are turning out endangered fish at several dozen tables a night without enduring a syllable of criticism?

How many chefs do we know that prefer cooking for chefs than they do customers, yet customers are returning repeatedly and it's the level of support that determines the level of success that restaurant will have.

I feel like a lot of the pastry chefs and chefs I worked for and worked under were always really, really big on the philosophy of 'everyone's in it together in the food world.'

TV chefs are not responsible for people's consumption of fibre; this is not our job.

The New Nordic diet originated in 2004, when the visionary chefs Rene Redzepi and Claus Meyer called a symposium of regional chefs to address the public's increasing consumption of processed foods, additives, highly refined grains, and mass-produced poultry and meat.

The good news about showcasing chefs and the TV shows is they've attracted a lot more smart kids to the profession than 30 years ago. On the downside, though, these young chefs all say they want their own restaurant and their own TV show.

Honestly... I only get starstruck over chefs.

We have very professional, amazing chefs that are contestants. Most of them have their own restaurants and are settled, recognized chefs in Mexico. That gives the show [Top Chef] a different level completely; the gastronomic level is very high. It makes it all more interesting and the competition is just harder and harder.

The pressure on young chefs today is far greater than ever before in terms of social skills, marketing skills, cooking skills, personality and, more importantly, delivering on the plate. So you need to be strong. Physically fit. So my chefs get weighed every time they come into the kitchen.

Chefs work with food, artists with oil paint, programmers with code.

I think a lot of chefs can definitely think about great flavor combinations and stuff, but then they'll pass it along to their pastry chef to actually do it in the end. Pastries, you actually do using recipes, and it's got a little more of a science to it. It's something that a lot of times, chefs aren't really involved in coming up with throughout their career, so it makes it a little more challenging.

The French are not rude. They just happen to hate you. But that is no reason to bypass this beautiful country, whose master chefs have a well-deserved worldwide reputation for trying to trick people into eating snails. Nobody is sure how this got started. Probably a couple of French master chefs were standing around one day, and they found a snail, and one of them said: 'I bet that if we called this something like `escargot,' tourists would eat it.' Then they had hearty laugh, because 'escargot' is the French word for 'fat crawling bag of phlegm.'

It's wild how chefs have become like rock stars.

My father and my brother are chefs.

There's a freshness to the approach of teen chefs. They're lighthearted, and they're not afraid to take risks.

Engineers don't have that sixth sense where we can just toss in things here and there like many chefs.

Strange people like chefs, musicians, and politicians affect me.

The reason that chefs become chefs is that they're not allowed into rooms with windows.

Chefs don't become chefs just to earn stars - that's not the goal.

I'll basically eat anything that a chef puts in front of me. One of the reasons is respect for the chef. I watch chefs eat at other chefs' restaurants, and they're very aware not to leave anything over because the chef is watching very closely. It's a very sincere interaction when two chefs are cooking for one another.

Chefs have only been able to work in restaurants, high-end cuisine. Why? Why haven't they been able to find other scenarios? For those chefs who want to do avant-garde cuisine, should they be finding their income in a restaurant?

I have a theory that the people who cook in jails are British chefs.

Mothers and grandmothers: these are the people that I admire most, not so much chefs.

It's quite weird knocking that out of them and telling them to forget cooking for chefs; forget what chefs say about your food.

I think all chefs who pursue great flavor have good ethics.

Chefs don't have a union. We don't have a Screen Actor's Guild.

Sometimes these challenges naturally select more chefs that can think on their feet very quickly. There are chefs I know who won't put things on the menu unless they've tried it four or five times. So you just naturally select a certain kind of chef, people who maybe don't win a bunch of challenges but they hang around.

Nine out of ten English chefs have their names on their chests. Who do they think they are? They're dreamers. They're jokes. Just ask yourself how many chefs in this country have Michelin stars and how many have their names on their jackets. We all wear blue aprons in my kitchen because we're all commis. We're all still learning.

Whether dealing with children or chefs, they are all giant babies in need of nurturing.

Following the devastating India Ocean tsunami of 2004, I founded Chefs for Humanity, modeled after Doctors Without Borders, but comprised of chefs. There wasn't anything out there like it, and there was a definite need for chefs to be able to offer assistance and aid.

'Sweet Genius' viewers will be on the edge of their seats as we continue to push the limits with inspirations and ingredients, while showcasing the talents of some of the best pastry chefs around. As a result, the desserts that the chefs create are truly outrageous.

Chefs are artists, and I couldn't be happy with my art if I was forced to use cheap ingredients.

I wasn't manufactured. I was cut from the cloth of the very old world of gastronomy. There was no such thing as celebrity chefs, chefs were trained and I like to think that I still represent those old values from that world and the opportunities that I am offered I often say no to.

Many of my friends are chefs, and I learnt to cook watching them.